02.
THE PROBLEM
How do we make the homepage contribute more meaningfully to product discovery and cart creation?
49%
HOMEPAGE ENGAGEMENT RATE
users showing up
6–7%
HOMEPAGE → CART ADDITIONS
users actually shopping
40%
SEARCH → CART ADDITIONS
where action happens
13%
PDP → CART ADDITIONS
product pages
The homepage pulled people in and failed to convert them. Search and PDP were doing the shopping; the homepage wasn't.
03.
THE EVIDENCE
06.
DESIGN DECISION
From evidence to interface. Three specific decisions that came out of the data - and the arguments each one triggered.
01. Hero banner removal
Evidence:
Hero banners showed 0.00% ATC. The most prominent banner recorded 0.12% CTR. Deals/Rollbacks hit 16.57% with no hero treatment.
Decision:
Remove the hero. Replace with a tabbed deals module — inline product cards, direct add-to-cart, no click-through.
Measure:
Product CTR, ATC rate, and basket contribution versus the previous hero placement.
The pushback:
Most resisted decision - hero real estate is the most visible ad inventory. The data won, eventually. The argument is still ongoing.
02. Buy Again prioritisation
Evidence:
SA grocery shopping is repeat-heavy. Buy Again was the highest-leverage ATC module when found the problem was exposure, not performance.
Decision:
Move Buy Again above the fold for returning users, paired with "Add all to cart." New users see curated popular products in the same slot.
Measure:
Buy Again usage as % of returning sessions; average items added per interaction.
03. Mission-based merchandising
Evidence:
Around the World" - one of the only thematic collections live - recorded the highest CTR at 1.15%.
Decision:
Mission-based collections become the primary mid-page discovery mechanism. Departments move to Zone 3.
Measure:
Mission CTR and ATC vs. generic department rows in equivalent positions.
07.
WHAT WOULD PROVE IT RIGHT
The data survived all the conversations.
Approval on a project like this doesn't come from one meeting. It comes from three teams - product, engineering, and business - each signing off on their own terms. That took most of the three weeks. Product wanted evidence. Engineering wanted scope clarity. Business wanted to protect promotional real estate. The data was the only thing that survived all three conversations intact.
01
Homepage strategy and information architecture approved by product and research leads
02
Module prioritisation framework adopted - every module now needs to justify placement through measurable product action
03
Concepts moved into validation pipeline. Design direction incorporated into product roadmap.
04
Not yet launched. The impact is structural and strategic, not yet measured in production.
08.
VALIDATION FRAMEWORK
METRIC
CURRENT BASELINE
SUCCESS SIGNAL
Homepage contribution to cart additions
6-7%
10% + (closing the gap with PDP's 13%)
Homepage prodcut click rate
0.12% - 1.15% across modules
2%+ average across Zone 1 modules
Module-level ATC efficiency
Uneven - 3 modules at 0.00% ATC
Zero modules in Zone 1 below 0.5% ATC
Repeat-purchase engagement
Not seprately tracked
15%+ of returning sessions include Buy Again interaction
Scroll depth vs cart action
Avg. 4.2 folds scrolled, 6-7% cart action
Under 3 folds scrolled, 10%+ cart action
Approval isn't the finish line. Some of the harder arguments - hero real estate, department demotion, banner reduction - are still live conversations. The data is on the design's side, but there's a difference between winning the argument and winning it permanently.
09.
CONCEPT EXPLORED WITH AI
AI accelerated the workflow. Product judgment determined what deserved to exist.
AI accelerated the mechanical work - extracting patterns from Power BI, cross-referencing research, generating homepage components in Vibey without opening Figma. Judgment did the work that mattered - deciding the 6–7% gap was a commerce problem, choosing the zone framework, holding the line in review cycles.
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